‘There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more.’ –Alexandre Dumas
Whether you were happy with life as a teenager could be down to a certain gene, says a new study.
In a large study of American adolescents, teens who carried the long form of the 5HTTLPR locus were more likely to say they were satisfied or very satisified with their lives (at age 18 to 26). People with two long variants were the most cheerful, with short/long carriers in the middle and short/short being the least so. (…)
This study is the latest in a long, long line of attempts to correlate 5HTTLPR with happiness, depression, stress and so on. A few months ago I discussed the history of this busy little gene and covered a meta-analysis of no fewer than 54 papers which claimed that there was indeed a link, with the short allele increasing the risk of depression in response to stressful events.
However many studies failed to find one, and worryingly the three largest studies were all negative which is a classic tell-tale sign of publication bias.
photos { 1. Erica Segovia | 2. Maggie Lochtenberg }
